BBFC Problem Films

[42ndStreetFreak]

Originally Posted by scribbler

My mention of the 'animal cruelty free' version, an easy enough purchase if I wanted it (albeit with the full version), but I never have.
Because the animals aren't being slaughtered onscreen, I'm still aware that they were.

Which I totally respect.
That to me is the only way to make a stand against this film IF you so wish to.

Buying (indeed even ****ing producing) the 'animal cruelty free' version is farcical hypocrisy.

For me the animal death WAS a problem and the only reason it took me many years to see the film.
On a visit to Amsterdam about 7 years ago (i'm 39) I found the old 'EC' DVD and...with much thought...decided to get it.

My reasoning was brutally honest.
I decided that quite frankly animals are routinely snuffed out for absolutely no good reason at all every second of every day all around the world.
From fur coats to battery chicken farms, to puppies in cages in a Korean market.
Indeed for less than a classic genre film.

NOT seeing the film will not bring the animals back or change a single thing about their deaths...as I have no time machine to stop the killing (and indeed why I fail to see how cutting a film - often to its ruin - somehow makes things okay).

The deed was done, it was done years ago without any help or support from me.
So I condemn the initial killings...but it's too late now and so we have to live with it if we want to see the film.
So my desire to see "Cannibal Holocaust" most certainly overruled my objection to animals deaths that had already occurred and had nothing to do with me.
Damned if I'm going to miss a chance to see a film so damn good (which it is) because of some long time dead animals, while all along countless other animals are dying just as (if not more) meaningless deaths everywhere while I think upon it.

The important thing is that it is not allowed to happen again or continue.

And Hell, If I was a little critter I'd rather die for "Cannibal Holocaust" than for an egg or a handbag.

And...yes I'll say it...the fact is, in this superbly atmospheric and authentic Jungle environment, in a film such as this as far as story and other content goes, because you know that these are real animal deaths they DO add a bleakly powerful aspect to the film.
It adds that veneer of mondo grotesqueness, unsettling darkness and air of uncompromising brutality to the other extreme elements of the film that are fantasy.
I wish that the animal deaths had not originally occurred...but that is out of my hands and can't be changed. So I'll see what film we actually have anyway.
And it's still a damn good one. And until my time machine turns up...I can live with that quite nicely thank you.

[mark meakin]

Originally Posted by vincenzo

Some of the old cockfighting scenes in films are appalling. The one in Day Of The Locust being among the worst I've seen.

The one in the 1988 cut of Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid is the worse I've seen as the beak of one bird penetrates the head of the other in grisly slow motion.

[mark meakin]

I have the non-anamorphic EC first release of CH too.If you are going to see these films & you know the various ins & outs of their productions then you have to see them full strength or not at all.I think the most despicable example of animal cruelty was on Mountain Of The Cannibal God where they pathetically tried to disguise the fact with shoddy spfx.Either do it or fake it in the first place.

[42ndStreetFreak]

Originally Posted by mark meakin

I have the non-anamorphic EC first release of CH too.If you are going to see these films & you know the various ins & outs of their productions then you have to see them full strength or not at all.I think the most despicable example of animal cruelty was on Mountain Of The Cannibal God where they pathetically tried to disguise the fact with shoddy spfx.Either do it or fake it in the first place.

Yeah...I have no time for Directors who later try to wiggle out of what they did and decided to do.
Deodato has said he thinks the 'animal free' version is a good idea...but quite frankly I care not on bit that a now washed up old hack who hasn't made a good film for over 2 decades suddenly decides to find some scruples in old age.

The faking of the animal deaths via FX is actually a really interesting discussion.
Because as far as I can see (and as far as I can judge by their desired effect on an audience) the only reason animal deaths like the ones in "Cannibal Holocaust" even happen is because they were real.
Otherwise I can't see why they would be included or what their point is.
As it is only because we know they are indeed real...that they even 'work'.

[vincenzo]

Originally Posted by 42ndStreetFreak

I wish that the animal deaths had not originally occurred...but that is out of my hands and can't be changed. So I'll see what film we actually have anyway.

Personally I can't see any argument there, 42nd. At the end of the day there's no alternative really.

[scribbler]

42street, you hit the nail on the head with your description of it being a powerful film. I don't have to have seen it to know that. I don't think any film still causes so many arguments so long after it's release! That is why, particularly as a fan of horror, it has always been a problem for me. Part of me wants to see the (fake) gore (what horror fan wouldn't want to see the effects that were so gruesome, that some people actually believed it was real), yet the rest of me says "No!!! They killed animals to make this!!". And it's why, years later, I still haven't seen it. I don't find myself stuck in a quandary over the movie (ie : should I, shouldn't I?), I know period, that I'm unlikely to change my views on watching Holocaust. But I cannot deny that it holds a strange curiosity to me. But thats more down to it's infamy, not me just being a sick puppy. Hence my mention of seeing a 'animal cruelty free' version. And on hindsight, I totally appreciate how hypocritical that does sound.

[Kyle]

Originally Posted by loops

The Keoma fall is also in the trailer but from a different angle.

Yes, the stabbing of the snake in 99 Women is horrendous, worse than the one in Bloody Moon.

ive not seen those films but i cant imagine anything worse than calamity of snakes for snake cruelty

[scribbler]

Originally Posted by mark meakin

I suppose they died happy trying to get their claws into Caroline Munro.I love the old Amicus monster movies anyway despite the ropey spfx.Warlords Of Atlantis is another firm favourite since I saw the cinema release when I was 10.

Blimey, I was going to say I saw 'Warlords' at the cinema too, but was scared of being labeled an old git

[vincenzo]

I was 12 when I saw Warlords Of Atlantis. I must be an ancient git.

[42ndStreetFreak]

Originally Posted by scribbler

42street, you hit the nail on the head with your description of it being a powerful film. I don't have to have seen it to know that. I don't think any film still causes so many arguments so long after it's release! That is why, particularly as a fan of horror, it has always been a problem for me. Part of me wants to see the (fake) gore (what horror fan wouldn't want to see the effects that were so gruesome, that some people actually believed it was real), yet the rest of me says "No!!! They killed animals to make this!!". And it's why, years later, I still haven't seen it. I don't find myself stuck in a quandary over the movie (ie : should I, shouldn't I?), I know period, that I'm unlikely to change my views on watching Holocaust. But I cannot deny that it holds a strange curiosity to me. But thats more down to it's infamy, not me just being a sick puppy. Hence my mention of seeing a 'animal cruelty free' version. And on hindsight, I totally appreciate how hypocritical that does sound.

It's a tough one my friend.
If you never see it...I applaud your stance.

I can see, honestly, the appeal of the 'cruelty free' version And I know why it exists. But I can;t get passed the fact that if a truly cared that much then I would not support the film.
And I did just that. Until one day I decided that, yes, I actually no longer cared that much.

It took me (seeing as I was into more extreme horror from about 16) about 16 years to finally see the film.
Purely because I heard if the real animal deaths.

Sadly I can't think of one 'Jungle' based Cannibal film (bar the shockingly terrible "Cannibals" and "Cannibal Terror" which you never want to see any way, trust me) that does not have animal deaths in it.
Even something like "Eaten Alive", which does not have its OWN animal deaths, uses footage of animal deaths from other films.

If you want a good, Euro, cannibal film without animal snuff i'd try the urban based "Cannibal Apocalypse". And hell, I just remembered even that really burns rats!